Israel: Who Can Count the Dust of Jacob?Can These Bones Live?"Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the seed of Israel."

Genesis 13:14-16; Numbers 23:10

4-20-18, * -- In the Jewish state of Israel, Yom Hazikaron, Heroes Remembrance Day, the day of remembrance for fallen soldiers and victims of terror begins. What is a memorial day in a country that has always known war and where remembrance means adding the toll of one year's dead and wounded to the scales of history? A country where sirens may pause but never stop, where each generation grows up knowing that they will have to fight, stand watch or run away. It is not so much the past that is remembered on this day, but the present and the future.

Yet each memorial day we count the dust [Genesis 13:16] that is a fraction of those who have fallen defending the land for thousands of years. Flesh wears out, blood falls to the earth where the red daisies grow, and bone turns to dust. The Creator vowed to Abraham [and his wife, Sarah, Genesis 17:19, 21] that his children would be as many as the dust of the earth and the stars of heaven. In their darkest days, there is mercy in the numberless count of the dust.

Some new countries are built to escape from the past, but there is no escaping it in these ancient hills of Israel. Israel Defense Forces [IDF] patrol over ground once contested by empires, tread over spearheads and the wheels of chariots buried deep in the earth. The Assyrians and the Babylonians came through here in all their glory. Greek and Roman soldiers and mercenaries pitted themselves against the handful of Judeans who came out of the Babylonian exile. The Ottoman and the Arab raged here, and Crusader battering rams and British Enfield rifles still echo in the quiet hills.

Can these bones live [Ezekiel 37:3,11-14], the Lord asks Ezekiel. And generations, after each slaughter, they come again, the descendants of the dead to reclaim the hills of their ancestors. Rising like the red flowers out of the soil; like the bones out of the earth. They come up as slaves out of Egypt and out of the captivity of empires, their tongues as numberless as the earth. Here they come again to set up kingdoms and nations. And there in shadows on the dust, a handful of men fight off a legion; swords, spears and rifles in hand they face down impossible odds. They fight and die, but they go on and live. [Ezekiel 37:9-14]

Some 3,000 years ago, Judge Jephthah and the King of Ammon were exchanging messages [Judges 11:14-28] not too different from those being passed around as diplomatic communiques today. The King of Ammon demanding land for peace and the Judge laying out the Israeli case for the land in a message that the enemy would hardly trouble to read before going to war.

The soldier is not so sacred as he once was. The journalist and the judge have taken his place. The borders have shrunk. The old victories have been exchanged for diplomatic defeats. From the old strongholds come missiles and rockets. And children hide in bomb shelters waiting for the worst to pass. This is the doing of the journalist and the judge. The man who serves is still sacred, but the temple of duty is desecrated more and more each year. Among the leftists draft dodging, once a black mark of shame, has become a mark of pride. Some are afraid, but some are filled with hate. They have found their Inner Cain [Genesis 4:8] and go now to slay their brothers with words.

How shall I curse whom G-d has not cursed, asks Balaam [Numbers 23:8]. But the King of Moab [1] is determined to have his curses anyway. And today it is to the UN that they come for curses. The Arab lands boil with blood, but resolution after resolution are issued damning the only democratic nation in the Middle East … Israel.

Were those men who fought and died for Judea and Samaria [now called ‘West bank], for the Golan and Jerusalem, for every square inch of land when the armies of Arab dictators came to push them into the sea, heroes or villains? Were Nasser, Hussein, Saddam, Arafat, Gaddafi, Assad and the House of Saud the real heroes all along? The Arab overwhelming majority of 360 million pitted against Israel’s tiny minority of 6 million.

King Solomon said, “All go to one place, all that lives is of the dust, and all returns to the dust. There is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works.” Ecclesiastes 3:20-22

Again we celebrate Israel’s memorial day that precedes the day of independence. We rejoice in those who sleep in the dust have died to protect. The skyscrapers and the orchards, the sheep ranches and the highways, the schools and the synagogues. For they who drained the swamps and built the roads, who held guard over the air and built the cities, may not have lived to see their works; but we rejoice in their works for them.

A new generation rises to watch over their dust and tend the works that they have built. Until the day when He that counts the dust of Jacob shall count them all, and the land shall stir, and in the words of Daniel, they that sleep in dust shall arise, and then rejoice with us. Daniel 12:2-3; Ezekiel 37:14